


What Happiness Was

by BekahRose



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-08
Updated: 2011-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-16 19:25:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BekahRose/pseuds/BekahRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the Gen-Fic Fest on LiveJournal at TW_Unpaired.<br/>Prompt #35 - Scenes from the childhood of our girl genius, Tosh.</p>
    </blockquote>





	What Happiness Was

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Gen-Fic Fest on LiveJournal at TW_Unpaired.  
> Prompt #35 - Scenes from the childhood of our girl genius, Tosh.

  
**What Happiness Was (Four Memories That Tosh Has of Growing Up, and One That Isn’t Hers)**   


As the bullet rips through her and Owen’s screams become nothing, she thinks back on how wasted her life has been. She has only ever wanted to help, to have fun and have a normal life. As she tries to stem the bleeding, bits and pieces of memories come to her; some more solid than others.

 **1.**

It is her first solid memory, the one that stands out most when she thinks about her childhood. Her mother is sitting on a hard-backed chair, posture as impeccable as always, but instead of the laughter that, up until two weeks ago, had always followed the young woman around, a heavy sadness seemed to settle on her shoulders. One hand resting in her lap and the other settled on top of the impossibly tiny casket. There is a small collection of black and ivory envelopes on the table just outside of the room and from her vantage point, Toshiko can see another two are being added to the small pile. She watches as the neighbours from three homes down enter the room and kneel, their lips are moving and even though she is straining to hear, their voices are too soft to make anything out.

She doesn’t fully understand what’s going on; she understands that her brother, so small and new and loud and smelly and wonderful, is now… not. She’s knows that he got sick; she knows that when she snuck a look in the casket it looks as though he is sleeping. What she doesn’t understand is why he got sick or how he got sick… why her father could not fix him the way he did her when she got chicken pox and couldn’t stop itching.

A large hand comes to rest on her shoulder and she jumps and twists her head, turning large brown eyes up to look at her father. With a curt nod of his head, he is gently nudging her forward, toward her mother. She doesn’t understand why this happened, but she does understand that her mother needs her now, more than ever.

 **2.**

This one is less solid, fuzzy around the edges and gives her a niggling feeling at the back of her head, like she’s missing something. She’s eleven and her hair falls in two long plaits down over her shoulders, her smile is blinding as she clutches two sheets of paper to her chest; one says that she has surpassed her latest exams in English, Maths and Science, Technology, History and Geography, keeping her at the top of the class, and the other is an invitation to her new best-friend’s birthday party. As she slips her shoes off and lines them up by the door, she feels a flutter of excitement. The other girls had been so jealous that she had been the first to receive an invitation and Toshiko knew that if it weren’t for the new girl being so… well… different and new, then the harsh words and the subtle name calling from the others would have wounded her more than they did.

“Mama?” Toshiko calls out as she hurries inside. “Look!” She is waving both pieces of paper in the air when she pulls up short.

The sitting room is full of boxes, all sealed and labelled correctly and if she looks close enough, she can read that some of them have her name written on them in bold, black marker. Her hands drop to her sides and the excitement she was feeling turns to the cold dread of certainty that they are moving. The dread sits in her stomach like a stone and Toshiko wants to be sick and rage and throw her things around and stomp her foot because of the unfairness of it all. The very idea of moving tears at her heart because she knows she will have to leave behind her new friend and her school and the few memories she has of her baby brother.

She looks to her mother who is taping yet another box closed; she stops for a moment and shoves her hair back from her face with her wrist and for a moment, she grins at Toshiko. For that one moment, Toshiko can see how much a fresh start will mean to her mother; how much leaving will hurt her but also help heal the ache and sorrow that has settled around her shoulders.

“Look at what?” She asks, shoving the box aside and already reaching for another.

Toshiko smiles and sets her papers aside. “It can wait,” she says, reaching for the stack of books her mother has been packing and begins to help, even though her eleven-year-old heart is breaking at having to say goodbye to something so soon; especially when she finally feels like there is more to her than just being Toshiko the Teacher’s Pet.

 **3.**

She’s fourteen, and they’ve been here for three years now and she can’t remember what life was like anywhere else; doesn’t care to remember what came before. She lets her gaze travel around the classroom and even though it’s been three years, she still can’t believe the chaos of it all.

There are kids laughing and screaming and throwing things at each other and she knows that if she were back in Osaka there would be none of this. She’d been so shy when she’d first arrived, so very anti-British that she’d done all she could think of to hate the school, hate the teachers and the new house and the uniforms and everything. Now though… Now she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Toshi!” A voice calls out over the morning din, and Toshiko grins and waves even as she slides a bag out of the seat next to her.

“Alice,” Tosh says; her grin widening as her friend slips into the seat next to her. “Did you…” she trails off and makes a complicated hand gesture followed by a nod in the direction of a group of boys on the other side of the room.

Alice nods, her bright blue eyes sparkling. “It’s done. Friday night I’m going to tell my mum I’m staying at your place, you can tell your parents you’re staying at my place, and we’ll meet them behind the football club.”

Tosh giggles and looks over at the group of boys again, her heart pounding in her chest. The idea that she is going to be lying to her parents and Mrs Sangster sends a tiny little thrill down her spine, and she couldn’t be more grateful that they had moved to England when they had…

This memory makes her smile, even though she knows without a doubt that it’s fragmented and there is more to it than what she’s remembering. She knows that there is something she’s happily omitted from the memory because it hurt, but it doesn’t matter because in that one moment, where she and Alice were plotting, she was happy and just like all the other fourteen year-old girls in their class.

 **4.**

The room is dimly lit and Tosh giggles before turning to face Alice; their cheeks are flush from a combination of the wine stolen from Luke’s mum’s cupboard and dancing up a storm on the threadbare rug only moments ago. Tosh takes a quick swig from the bottle before handing it over to Alice; the others are all drinking pilfered cans of lager or bottles of cider as they mill around and for a moment, she feels sad that this could be the last time she and Alice go to a party like this; they’ve done everything together, been inseparable for the last six years, but then someone does something that has the whole group cheering and the moment of melancholy passes.

Tosh is feeling a little light-headed and attributes it to a bunch of things; the wine, the dancing, the pride in a job well done and A-levels being over. She reaches for the bottle, her eyes tracking something behind Alice, just past the other girl’s shoulder. “He likes you,” she says softly, giggling and looking quickly down at her lap as bright green eyes catch her staring.

Alice scoffs and shoves at Tosh almost sending her sprawling across the settee. “Don’t be bloody rid.. rod… stupid.” Her laugh is infectious and she pulls Tosh to her in a sisterly hug, resting her head on Tosh’s shoulder. “S’you he likes… watches…” she teases softly. “Toshi and Richard, sitting in a tree…” she sing-songs and Tosh rolls her eyes. “You should walk right up to him and snog him.”

“You are drunk.” Tosh says, holding the almost empty bottle of wine away from her friend. “Consider yourself cut off.” She leans away and has another pull from the bottle, laughing and choking as some of it dribbles down her chin. “What are you doing?” She glares at the backside of her best friend, who is currently leaning over the edge of the settee, making ‘come here’ motions with her hands.

“Rich! Dick! C’mere!” Alice is giggling and wiggling her bum in Tosh’s face. “Toshi has to tell you something.” Dark curls bounce around her face as she throws Tosh a cheeky grin. “Pucker up, Toshi!” Alice is wriggling back around on the settee and tugging the boy in question down between them.

She meets bright green eyes and looks down at her lap quickly, letting the bottle of wine be tugged from her fingers and barely registering Alice’s triumphant yell at having gotten the last of the drink. “Alice is a bit drunk,” she says, casting a quick glance up at the boy wedged between them.

The boy – Richard – nods slowly. “S’okay, I’m not… makes my head feel funny. How about you?” he asks, tilting his head and trying to catch Tosh’s eyes. “Tosh?”

A giggle bubbles up from her chest and escapes on a hiccup; he is the only one to ever call her that, and she likes it. Has liked it since she was fifteen and they were partnered up in biology. She holds her thumb and forefinger up, about an inch apart. “Just a smudge… a li’l bit.” She looks up just in time to close her eyes tight and then his lips are on hers, soft and insistent and somewhere in the back of her mind she can hear Alice cheering and laughing.

It is like the world has fallen away and it is only the two of them. He tastes like salt and vinegar crisps, squash and something sweet that she can’t put her finger on right at that moment. She feels like she is floating and her toes curl in her sneakers and she’s afraid that she will do something wrong, when all of a sudden, she feels a familiar hand slip into hers from where it was resting on the back of the settee and give a little squeeze. Prying open one eye, she can just see past Richard’s ear that Alice is locked in a similar embrace with Joe, from their business class. Smiling, she gives Alice’s hand an answering squeeze before returning her attention to Richard…

It is another solid memory, but this one leaves her wondering what happened to the people in this room and her best friend. If it didn’t hurt so much, she knows that she would laugh as she remembers the half-drunk antics of her and her friends.

 **And one memory that wasn’t hers…**

Jack snuck her into Cardiff under the cover of darkness – not for the first time – and, as she looks around the morgue, she feels an ache worm its way around her heart, clenching tightly as the reality of it all sets in. She nods slowly, and the young man, ‘Ianto, he’s Ianto. She told you about him, remember?’ presses something into a keypad and with a thrum of technology and a hiss of gas, he pulls open one of the drawers and unzips the plastic bag, brushing the edges away so she can see clearly. Looking down, she feels her knees tremble, taking in pale features off-set by dark hair; for a moment she is not looking at Toshiko Sato the young woman, but Toshiko Sato, her eight year old daughter and she feels the ache twist once more.

“My Toshiko,” she mutters, closing her eyes…

 _She’s eight and standing in amidst a sea of rice, her eyes wide and fearful as she looks from the mess at her feet to her parents who are both trying to look furious and keep the grins from their faces at the same time._

 _“I wanted to surprise you,” she says, fiddling with a stray strand of hair. “I wanted to help!”_

 _Her husband is the first to crack and he turns away to hide his laughter, already moving to get the broom and dustpan. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes before reaching for her daughter. “Oh, Toshiko,” she sighs before laughing and pressing kisses to the little girl’s cheeks. “Well, you certainly did surprise us.” She knows that she has been sad; sometimes too sad and she knows that Toshiko has been trying to keep everyone’s spirits lifted._

 _Since the death of her baby, Toshiko has not filled the hole left behind, but lessened the ache; given her something to smile about, reminded her that there is life to be had beyond sorrow. It is a memory she will cherish for the rest of her life, as Toshiko tilts her head slightly, looking out from beneath long lashes – her father’s eyes – and quickly hugs her tight._

 _“I just wanted to help.”_

She squeezes her eyes shut in an attempt to trap the memory and keep it pure. When she is sure, she opens her eyes slowly and looks down, gone is the child and in her place is the woman; so brave and smart and beautiful. Leaning down, she presses kisses to the cold cheeks before bending to whisper in her ear. “You helped, more than you knew.”


End file.
